[2011] PRIVATE & PUBLIC LIFE IN THE 1970s

0159 Hurst Park Friends

At our new home in Molesey the main source of our new friends, with whom we quickly got involved, was the school.  My wife met other wives outside the school, when she went down to collect the children. We were soon in the middle of a small group of friends based on our children.  In this way we met Lil and Ian Donaldson, and Moira and Derek Payne, two couples who became our firm friends. They lived a few houses away from ourselves, and their children were the same age as ours.

A second group of our friends came when Pat got involved with a women's group - Lively Minds – which was a more intellectual form of WI (Women’s Institute).  She was eventually chair of the group, for a year or so.  From this group we became especially friendly with Patricia (Tricia) and James Malcolm.

Ian Donaldson was an architect at that time, working on the development of Great Yarmouth's new shopping centre.  I remember his great problem was that, having put in place the multi-storey car park over the centre and having sealed the roof with asphalt, it rained. Unfortunately, this rain showed up as leaks – throughout the upper parts of the garage.  It was a massive job to correct the problem. He had in previous years been architect on the scheme in Chester which I so much admired. Lil was a housewife, as were all the wives in the group, but Lil was different in as much as she was Swedish -- very Swedish indeed.

Derek Payne, on the other hand, was in DP with the Midland Bank; where he was a systems programmer.  Both he and Moira were very intelligent, and were very proud of this.  In particular they played bridge at a very high level.  We sometimes played with them, but were always trounced.

James was a civil servant in the DTI's think tank which was located in the Millbank Tower. He again was very bright, and was able to take on Derek at bridge more or less as an equal. Tricia, though, was in the same – lower – league as Pat and myself!  We were later invited by them to watch the (1977) Jubilee firework show on the Thames, and had a wonderful view from the Millbank Tower of this.

In terms of the children, the Donaldson's had a son Andrew, who was about Sarah's age, and a much younger daughter Genevieve who - being so young - was very spoiled. James and Tricia had no children at that time; though they did adopt a boy and a girl later on, and - having done that - had daughter of their own. Tricia was hardly a natural mother and her trials and tribulations feature in other sections.  Moira and Derek had two of their own children, both girls, and they also adopted a boy.  Their two girls were tested at the same time as Sarah was, for the educationally gifted children society, and recorded high scores like Sarah.  Elizabeth, the younger daughter, in particular was very good with her hands and was filmed for television as part of a programme on the society.  Later on, having flunked out of medical school, she found a job – as a dental technician - where she could make the best use of her hands. Accordingly, it was a terrible shame when she developed multiple sclerosis and this meant that she had to give the job up.

With these friends came some others.  With Lil came a friend of hers, Marie Louise, who was also Swedish, and her husband John, who was English and worked as a leading chemist for a brewery.  They just had one son, who was the same age as Sarah and Andrew.

On the fringes there were Veronica and Tony Bata, whose daughter Anthea was the same age as Sarah and was a school-friend of hers.  Sarah also had another school-friend, Sophia, who was her best friend; but we didn't see much of her parents .  Miles also had another friend Remy, who lived just across the road, whose main claim to fame was that his uncle (who was also of the Iranian descent), owned the shop Bijan in Rodeo Drive in Los Angeles -- then possibly the most exclusive shop in the world.

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